Electronic document publishing often demands more than a stack of paper in an output tray of an office printer. Typically, a plurality of duplex printed sheets are bound into finished documents by a publishing system that prints and finishes books. Publishing systems perform operations such as collating, binding, folding, trimming, stapling, etc. These finishing operations are typically performed on all of the sheets in a book at one time, which generally requires the use of high forces and powerful motors. Consequently, the systems adapted to perform these functions are relatively expensive and often exceed the cost of other desktop or office printers. As such, known publishing systems are not generally well suited for use in low-cost desktop bookmaking.
Other typical publishing systems incorporate sheet-wise operations, which are performed on individual sheets that are subsequently accumulated or stacked and bound to form a bound document. However, since the entire stack of sheets must generally be accumulated before being stapled or otherwise bound, conventional finishing systems utilize high-force staplers configured to staple through an entire sheet stack in a single operation. More particularly, typical staplers require a high mechanical force to press staple legs through the sheet stack and bend the staple legs to bind the sheet stack. Since the sheet fibers are forced aside to allow passage of the staple legs, the required force to staple a document is relatively large and increases as the number of sheets in the sheet stack increases. Therefore, a need exists for a publishing system that decreases forces and motor power used to staple a bound document while providing a compact system suitable for use with office printers and for methods associated therewith.